Bringing people back to the open web
chrishardie.com
Bringing people back to the open web
1–10 of 95 posts
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#2This is a good idea – but impossible.
Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models.
How do you compete with that?
The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause.
But that doesn’t happen. There’s not enough engineers that would volunteer their time for this. In fact, most engineers either don’t care at all about this stuff, or they drank the kool aid and believe Google and Facebook are doing good.
As long as there’s so many developers that want to work at Facebook, as long as Google has more resources than you, you won’t be able to outcompete them on technology.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#3>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not.
I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of things people love. Not just some gentrified, marketable, set of opinions from a narrow slice of the possible. The overton window has shrunk enough.
That's how the web was and how it can be again. Without extremes there's nothing exceptional.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#4This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…
What blows my mind is how much money Facebook gets from ads. I've never clicked a Facebook ad except by accident. And yet they get paid more for my presence than I'd ever be willing to pay for a social network.
That's the real rub for me. I mean, we imagine the ideal "decentrialized but user-friendly web". Like, there's an online open architecture of servers where you have a cryptographically-controlled "account" for your family and you can easily buy plug-ins to add features to this account. Like an app store but for webapps all linked to your private migrateable data store. And you can sync that data down to some kind of ubiquitous home box appliance as a local back-up/cache, or move it over to another host because it's an open architecture.
Presumably, if you wanted to enroll your family into a social network that's not based on selling you, you'd have to pay for it. So how much is a social network worth? I sure wouldn't pay $50/year for that program for my family.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#5>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…
I believe there is a middle ground between hate speech being "allowed-but-not-thriving" and censorship, and I think we can do a better job of finding it than we do now.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#6This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…
Devs are not the problem, especially not the amount of them. Google has so many devs, sure, maybe that's why we now have 7 messaging app from them...
The tools for the open web are present, just check https//indieweb.org
Comformist, lazy people, our own friends, are the problem. I'd love to see how to make them care.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#7This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…
A free OS for PCs is a good idea -- but impossible. Microsoft and Apple have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Microsoft and Apple have research labs where they can subject their OS to hundreds of thousands of user-hours of testing for usability, scalability, and robustness.
How do you compete with that?
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#8>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…
On the open web, registrars regularly suspend domains, isps block ips, in the name of 'we are protecting you'. But at least you own your data and you can move it to somewhere else.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#9>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…
"thrives" != "exists"
I don't see a contradiction between allowing hateful content to exist but not actively promoting it to users. Time and time again we've seen algorithmic feeds that are entirely dedicated to making users click on more things serve up more and more hateful content (think: YouTube's recommended videos).
As I interpret it, the OP is calling for a return to neutrality on the open web, not censorship. No-one uses YouTube because they're enthusiastic about the recommended content that appears after their video. They use it because the potential audience is huge, and in many ways it's the only choice if you want to start a successful video career. The linked post is asking what if people had a choice?
Take Twitter for example. There was a mild uproar a while back because they started banning alt-right accounts. Those banned users then set up Gab (I think?), a Twitter alternative for the alt-right. In an open world where dozens of different social networks exist this wouldn't be an issue at all, in fact it would be how things should work. Anyone can make their own playground, and anyone can decide their own rules. But the closed, centralised world we have today gives companies like Twitter far too much power, and far too broad an audience to effectively use that power.
Re: Bringing people back to the open web
#10>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…
The reason we're in the mess that we are is the shit show the open web was. People were delighted to have a walled garden where they only communicated with friends, instead of random drive-by trolls in the open.
And frankly, it's understandable. A place that justifies bullying and hate speech as a good thing, with mumblings of "b.. b.. but free speech", is not a place where anybody wants to spend their time. (Except people who either like or don't mind bullying)
And given that we're currently debating if the Overton window should include actual real-life Nazis - "because free speech" - I'm OK with it shrinking some more.
Extremes in thought are indeed necessary. But they need to be followed by a realization of how far is too far, and an ability to moderate how much of that extreme thought is publicly shared, respecting other people. Maturity is a necessary tool of useful debate.
"How the web was" was (and is) mostly kids screaming in the backyard, with sensible adults carving out spaces that exclude immaturity.